Weezer's Hurley as More Corporate Branding?

It was bad enough when Weezer felt the need to insert Best Buy into their incredibly overplayed radio hit "I Want You To." Now it seems that their record Hurley, scheduled to be released on Sept. 14, may not be a direct reference to the Lost character played by Jorge Garcia.

Even though Garcia appears on the cover, Rolling Stone reports that Weezer's guitarist Brian Bell explained that the record was funded by the the Nike brand, and then later retracted his statement, in a most unusual way.

Initially, Bell said: "The inspiration came from a surf company called Hurley that was funding the record at the beginning of the recording process... We actually did some sort of advertisement -- I don't even know how they're tied in so much, although -- we got some clothes, and we did a photo shoot where we're wearing these clothes, and I think we're selling these clothes in malls."

Shortly thereafter, Bell posted the following on a Weezer message board. "I mistakenly said that Hurley funded the album. Weezer paid for every penny of this recording. The reason the record is called Hurley is because [Jorge Garcia] is on the cover. We thought about leaving the record untitled for the fourth time, but that causes a lot of problems and we knew people would end up calling the record Hurley anyway."

Either way, Rolling Stone explains that the band does in fact have a marketing deal with Hurley, which is nothing out of the ordinary for them, as they've been doing corporate cross promotion for a decade and a half. At some point, you'd think one couldn't get any richer and would just be in it for the music. Guess that's not always the case.